Slattery dangerous on release: father

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A "sadistic" man jailed for keeping a woman as his slave would still be a
danger when released from prison, his father said today.

John Slattery, of Adelaide, said he believed his 42-year-old son, Graeme John
Slattery, should have been handed a longer sentence than the 14 years imposed
today by County Court judge Graeme Crossley.

He said, however, the woman he kept prisoner in the Warrnambool area of
Victoria and other victims would "have peace" for at least the 11-and-a-half
years his son must serve before being considered for parole.

Mr Slattery said he thought there was no chance of rehabilitation for his
son.

"He's not a psychopath, he's bad," said Mr Slattery.

He said his son's sentence wasn't long enough and that he would still be
dangerous when eventually released.

Mr Slattery said that when he first read about the case against his son, he
had to set the record straight with the authorities over his son's lies about a
disturbed childhood.

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Judge Crossley said that Slattery had committed horrendous crimes against the
40-year-old woman, forcing her, among other things, to eat garden snails, cow
manure, his faeces and to drink motor oil to satisfy his own "warped sense of
humour".

Slattery was in February convicted on 42 charges, including assault, indecent
assault and intentionally causing serious injury against the woman between 1996
and 1999.

He also pleaded guilty to an additional 27 charges relating to the abuse of a
second woman, her sons and two former employees.

The court heard earlier that the woman had had opportunities to escape
Slattery's slavery, but had failed to do so.

She had been vulnerable, having recently separated from her husband and had
lost her job when he befriended her, the court heard.

Slattery began to manipulate and dominate the woman's life and progressed to
beating her with a fire poker and a broom handle and forcing her to stand on her
head naked with her legs apart in front of other men.

On one occasion, she fell onto a bed of tacks Slattery had placed round her
on the floor.

He urinated into her mouth, sheared off her hair and forced her to pierce her
nipple.

He also forced her to have "Toe Rag" tattooed on her body - the name he
constantly called her.

The heads of the enslaved woman's three-year-old daughter and an older son
were flushed in a toilet.

Judge Crossley told Slattery: "You acted as you did in order to obtain your
own way and to satisfy your cruel and macabre sense of humour."

"Your actions were carried out purposely to infringe the rights of your
victims, to hurt the feelings of your victims and to risk their health and
well-being - simply because he enjoyed doing it."

The judge said that Slattery's crimes were "outrageous, sadistic and
manipulative in the extreme and totally unacceptable".

"You may not have taken the life of any of your victims, but it may be
fairly said that you took part of the lives of some of them."

The judge said he had not heard anything about Slattery to suggest that he
could be rehabilitated.